Exciting young mare Sweet Ideal will be out to continue the success of Victoria’s Western Districts at Melton on Saturday night.
Boom trotting mares Keayang Zahara and Jilliby Ballerini – trained at Ecklin South near Terang by Marg and Paddy Lee – have been flag bearers for the region in recent weeks, but both get this Saturday off.
In contrast, Sweet Ideal has enjoyed a break at the Camperdown property of 71-year-old trainer Gary Lawlor and returns to the track this week.
“It’s an exciting time in our part of the world,” Lawlor said. “Those trotting mares are amazing, aren’t they?
“They ran home in under 55sec last week and they’re four-year-old trotters. You’d be thrilled to have a pacer go that quick and the pacers are supposed to be so much faster.
“You can almost see a time when the pacers and trotters will race together because the gap seems to be closing so much.”
Sweet Ideal has already done her part for the Western Districts with 15 starts netting eight wins and four placings.
Now it’s time to chase her first feature win in next month’s $100,000 Vicbred final at Melton on November 29.
But Lawlor warned Sweet Ideal would be short of a run this week.
“We’re not like the big stables who can work six or seven horses together and get them really fit at home,” he said.
“Even finding suitable trials isn’t easy. Darryl (Lawlor’s son) said we’re simply going to have to race her back to peak fitness.
“We took her to the Geelong trial on Monday, but she only had two rivals and they were a two and a three-year-old. I’m not sure we got a lot out of it.
“She can have this run and maybe another one before the heats of the Vicbred (at Bendigo on July 12).”
Sweet Ideal, who hasn’t raced since winning at Melton on July 26, will start from outside the back row (gate nine) against her own sex in the fourth race on Saturday night.
“I like the draw. It means she’s two out on the back row and following out Pet Kitty, who will begin well. It means she should push through and settle in front of a few and not right out the back,” Lawlor said.
“She’s a star. We love her. She’s that good that even underdone she can win it, but we’ll drive her to have last run at them.
“It’s not just the right way to drive her first-up, but also important to teach her to become a better racehorse.
“She’s got no idea what she’s doing at times, she’s only had 15 starts and she’s against a horse like Pet Kitty, who has raced 120 times.”
Lawlor said he wasn’t in a rush to decide on tackling some of Australia’s best mares in a string of feature races early next year.
“We’re just in no rush with her. She’s still young and learning, we’ll take our time developing her into the best mare she can be,” he said.
